Ravens and Writing Desks
by Umbra of Winter
Summary: His plan was flawless. There was nothing that he hadn’t anticipated, hadn’t predicted. L was supposed to die. He was supposed to kill him, no, Rem was. There was only one TRUE Kira… not five…
1. Prologue

_1/3 the Battleground_

Hey, not much I can say to this 'cept it was created, written and posted on a whim. I'll give you the summary and stuff and if people like the story I'll keep posting. Reviews are much appreciated!!

Summary: His plan was flawless. There was nothing that he hadn't anticipated, hadn't predicted. L was supposed to die. He was supposed to kill him, no, Rem was. There was only one TRUE Kira… not five…

Genre: Humor, Action, Horror

Rated: T

Warnings: Violence, Language, Gore, Frivolous Nonsense, etc…

(Also note that this story is cleverly disguised as something serious when in reality it will turn into nothing more than a nonsensical train wreck filled to the brim with stupidity and EXTREME OOCness….. Just don't kill me when the personalities of very serious characters are demolished rather purposefully…)

* * *

_Prologue- __Into__ the Rabbit's Hole_

The clock above his desk had grown into a morphing white noise as the old man, with his unkempt snow-colored hair and deep set pine green eyes, stared exhaustedly at the uniformed police officer sitting across from him, biting his lip nervously. For ten minutes, neither man had been able to speak or break the vice-like tension that had entered the air. The matter at hand had been too much of a shock for them to discuss it now, but it had to be done.

Finally, the officer shifted and cleared his throat.

"As you know, Mr. Scott, I'm here to follow up on the events that took place last week… Could you explain what happened?" The cop spoke with a slight stutter, obviously still remaining in the wide window of immaturity that most people his age would've outgrown already. He hadn't been doing work like this for long. Mr. Scott's pine colored orbs grew livelier as the silence was broken, the lines in his face deepening into what might've been a look of remorse.

"Officer Harris, everyone knows what happened." Mr. Scott responded finally, his old face stern. Harris cleared his throat and his eyes flitted to elsewhere in the room. The sound of the aged analog clock that seemed to be in every room of every school made itself heard again, loud and menacing.

"I know… but it's procedure—" His tone was almost pleading. The old man said nothing at first.

"You'd think in such a small town… we'd never have to deal with school shootings or deaths, but it's happened. Everyone knows about it, but I guess I should talk about it again." Officer Harris remained silent "The shooter, a Mr. Chris Doran came to the school last week at around 9:15 AM on the 17th… He had a gun with him and forced thirty other students into the gymnasium. He was a fairly good boy and, as far as I know, he'd done nothing to even remotely warn us of such an action. I never thought he'd do such a thing."

"How did he die?"

"Well, he made a show of harassing two students in particular. When he went to grab one… the other grabbed an aluminum bat that had been left out with a good deal of other sports equipment for the P.E. class that was supposed to be there that morning. She beat him to death with it, without any hesitation whatsoever." Mr. Scott sighed, a tremor running through the long release of breath. He had been one of only two faculty members that had seen the carnage before it had been cleaned away. "It's strange though… he fired three times, right into the crowd of hostages… but no one else died."

The aged headmaster rubbed his temples quietly, trying to erase the image from his mind as the young police officer grimaced in silence. It dragged on, the tension and the awkwardness of such a violent topic. Both were tired and the media had drained them, for once pulling away from the subject of a killer that could end lives with just a name.

"I was told to get the names of those involved. I need to question them as well so that we can close this up."

An odd look crossed Mr. Scott's face as if he were looking at pieces to a puzzle that didn't quite fit together or belong to that particular puzzle at all.

"Their names are Elizabeth Flamburg and Morrigan Andrews."

-/-/-/-

She had hair that had once been black, but so many times had she changed its color that it had become horribly unnatural in appearance and fried. Her dark sepia eyes scanned the algebraic equations in the battered notebook before her as she completed the problems quickly, not caring if her answers were right or wrong.

To someone who had never met her before, she looked as if she were working hard. To someone who had spoken with her at least a few times in their lifetimes would see quite clearly that she was writing something else. She was picturing something else entirely in her mind.

"Kira has been caught. Am I correct?" She mumbled quietly, suddenly, jotting down a number that was too large to be the correct answer to the equation. There was a pause, the only sound being her level breathing and scratch of her writing utensil on the water-stained paper, and then she spoke again.

"Not exactly, huh? … Kira will control Rem soon. Am I correct?" Another pause and she closed her notebook, her pentagram necklace and belly-button piercing jingling in sync as she turned in her swivel chair to give the empty space behind her in the small bedroom an irritated stare. "What do you mean '_you don't know_'?"

The room around her was silent. Irately, she snapped the waistband of the childishly patterned boxers that she wore over her real undergarments. A glare marred her expressionless face, giving her an indescribable look of instability.

"Pogo, how am I supposed to—" She froze as the phone rang on the nightstand of the untidy bed that she had not occupied in quite a long time. It rang again and she rose, straightening one of the straps on her sports bra, an article of clothing that made her appear more flat-chested than she already was.

Reaching out with a hand that's nails had been bitten and painted too many times to be healthy; she picked up the phone, cutting the third ring short.

-/-/-/-

The befuddlement that had been on Agnes Scott's face had slipped into an expression of mild disdain. Harris didn't speak, even as he seemed to notice that the older man looked as if he were trying to piece together those mismatched pieces that he had found himself with.

"They hated each other all the way through elementary school, and their dislike of each other even escalated to violence on occasions when they made it here. After… after Doran was killed… You can't keep them away from each other." The clock became an actual entity in the room, its role as white noise suddenly forgotten. "It was Miss Andrews that had beat Chris Doran to death and Miss Flamburg that he had harassed.

"That girl walked from the gymnasium, covered in blood, and she acted as if she'd done nothing more than run a few laps. Elizabeth was just as composed… I saw her getting something out of the vending machine while the paramedics carted the body away. Her fingers weren't even shaking."

-/-/-/-

Wide sky-blue eyes stared nervously at the pixilated images of a speeding red car on her computer screen. Pressed to her ear with a hand shaking slightly with excitement was a phone that was still white in color. It was new, she had only just gotten one put in her room. A shaking breath, her heart obviously pounding, she closed the window and spoke.

"I'm getting rid of the software… It'd be a r-really stupid idea to k-keep this stuff on my computer…" She stuttered a little, but still managed to keep the nervousness out of her business-like manner. Behind her, on the bed that she had just recently made ready for herself to occupy, the blankets shifted as if the weight of a body had been added.

_"__So,__ was that__ Shinigami__ that__ Mokuhi__ spoke with telling the truth?"_ Came another female's voice, steady but just as excited. The blue-eyed girl ran a hand through her coppery brown hair and sighed again, her attention shifting to the compressed space on the bed, as if someone had spoken to her. Her jaw tightened and she drew her legs up in a dismal attempt to sit cross-legged in her beaten old swivel chair.

"How should I know? I didn't actually speak with it! I couldn't even see the damned thing!!" She had managed to remove the anxious stutter, but had filled the vacancy by raising her voice to an almost paranoid level. When she took a massive breath to begin an even louder segment of dialogue, the girl on the other end of the phone interrupted her.

_"LIZZY! Chill out, okay? I was just asking. If you keep freaking out like that I'm gonna start freaking out." _Silence for a moment, which the copper-haired girl used to glance questioningly at the impression that suddenly disappeared from the plain colored comforter of her bed. _"We're just going to have to take __Mokuhi's__ word for it. She couldn't keep a secret to save her life anyway."_

Lizzy nodded, but then realized that the other girl would not be able to tell.

"Okay Morrigan." She murmured. "I'll calm down."

_"Good. Now, do you remember what Thomas told us to do?"_

-/-/-/-

"You think that that ENTIRE incident was staged? I'm sorry, Mr. Scott, you're an intelligent man, but you and I both know tha—" Officer Harris was cut short when the pine-eyed educator silenced him with a look of fury that only someone who had dealt with petulant children their entire lives could manage.

"Did I ever say that I _know _it was staged? No." Agnes's voice was deathly quiet, causing Harris to sink back into his chair a bit. When he was sure that the young man was not so willing to interrupt him or hint at the possibility senility, he continued. "Yes, I am old, Officer Harris, but I am not senile or paranoid. I have dealt with a good deal of people in my lifetime and I know when there is something horribly _wrong _at work."

Harris looked down at his hands. Choosing to, not for the first time during his visit, remain as silent as the grave, he let the principle continue.

-/-/-/-

Elizabeth nodded again, this time not really caring if Morrigan could not see. Next to her, a picture that she had kept only for decoration shifted slightly before rising up from the piece of furniture that it had rested on and began to travel across her fairly neat room. She paid it no mind.

"Delete the harvest-virus but never get rid of the disc and slick the hard drive every morning after use so it can't be traced… I have the files it got for us. Two for you and two for me. I'm gonna clean my hard drive out in a few hours so that no one'll know we hacked into the registry." To confirm her statement, more to herself, she picked up a stack of CD cases that were extremely plain in appearance and clutched them to her chest, as if they were a life-line. A light chuckle came from Morrigan's end of the phone.

_"Good."_ Her voice said with a smile in it's tone. _"See? No __one'll__ catch us. Now all we need to do is wait for the right time and then we can get to work. I'm sure confusing the shit out of the Superiority Complex Titans in Japan will be fun. It won't be so bad."_

Lizzy smiled, no, smirked, as she set the CDs down and began to unlace her boots. The tension had left her shoulders.

"Yea, you're right Morrigan. I guess I did panic a bit… I'll try and stay calm from now on."

_"I don't think that you can."_

"I said -_try_-, Morrigan. That doesn't mean that I'm vowing that I'll never freak out again." Elizabeth groused at her new friend's mock concern, tossing one boot aside and beginning to unlace the other. "Listen, it's late and I still need to run to Dunkin' Donuts before Mokuhi has a cow. I'll give you the files at lunch tomorrow, okay?"

-/-/-/-

"It's very late… If you still have questions come see me tomorrow morning before school hours begin." His tone dismissed anything that the young officer might've said to continue the conversation as he now opted for massaging the area between his eyes instead of his temples. Harris put his uniform hat back on, making his wardrobe more complete. He gave a slight nod to the old faculty member as he rose and made his way to the door briskly. He obviously didn't really have any desire to continue.

"Liam?" Mr. Scott suddenly inquired. The cop turned to look at the principle. The old man was still massaging the area between his snow-colored brows, his pine colored eyes closed.

"Yes, Mr. Scott, sir?"

"The year you graduated was a good year. I should have retired then." The statement was sudden, but at the same time as dismissing as the one that had come not even a minute before. With nothing to say in response, Liam Harris left.

-/-/-/-

_"Roger_. _See you then. AND DON'T BE LATE!"_

"I won't!!" Acutely aware that she'd hear a small chorus of cackles in response to her indignant outburst, both from the other end of the phone and from somewhere in the five feet radius around her, she hung up the phone, preferring instead to deal with the voice, the eyes and the demented grin that was always close behind her.

-T-B-C-


	2. Chapter 1

A/N: Well, here's the first chapter. Sorry that there were no Death Note characters featured in the prologue. I was in a rush to get everything set to get the plot moving. After around chapter four or so, the chapters won't jump around with character groupings so much.

Btw, I haven't decided on any pairings yet. The characters that I have created for the story aren't gonna be paired with anyone though.

* * *

_Chapter One- Variables_

He was, for lack of a better term to describe it, overjoyed. But the more he thought about it, the more he found that it was an understatement. What word could possibly describe the elated feeling that the knowledge of his imminent victory brought?

Somewhere in the back of his mind, he smirked, remembering quite clearly the look of shock that had passed over each and every face of the task force only a few nights before. Rem's note had become his the moment Higuchi's heart had stopped beating and L's death certificate was just waiting for the coroner's signature. With that thought in mind, the glazed look that often accompanied daydreaming evaporated from his intelligent red-brown eyes.

Effortlessly, he molded his countenance into the perfect expression of curiosity, managing very well to stay several steps away from the expression that Matsuda often exhibited. Like he had done many times over the past few months, Light let his gaze land on the cuff that was always cold against the skin of his wrist. He followed each link of the chain, frustration rising a little in him each time he remembered how long they had been there, until a pale hand entered his vision.

"Ryuzaki? You've been staring at that thing all morning, have you actually learned anything?" Controlled, every emotion that coiled through his voice was controlled. He wasn't quite in the clear yet and one wrong move would make his efforts all for naught. With wide, sleepless hematite eyes, the famous detective looked up from the Note, not unnerved in the slightest by the female Shinigami watching his every move almost hostilely.

"Yes, I have Light-kun…" L stated bluntly with no evidence of a jab. At least not yet. Light struggled to keep his eyelid from twitching out of irritation, hoping that his muscles would obey.

"You did?" He feigned interest rather well. "What did you find?"

"Some of these rules don't fit with the others. I believe that at least one of them is fake." Ryuzaki wasn't looking at the younger genius as he said this as candidly as his previous statement, opting instead to look at Rem analytically and nibble at his horribly abused thumbnail. The cynical little voice in the back of Light's mind, which all people seem to hear at some point or another, laughed maniacally to itself. Good, good. This was very good. Everything was moving along quite nicely.

"I haven't had a chance to look at the notebook yet. Which rule do you think is the fake?" Light inquired, ignoring the interested glances that the rest of the investigation team was sending their way. Except for now, no one, not even Matsuda, had said anything to break the unnerving silence that had fallen upon the room. He wasn't sure why, but maybe Rem's presence had something to do with it.

Onyx orbs moved to stare at the rather plain looking ceiling of the situation room, the same contradictory look of blankness and calculation passing through them.

"The thirteen day rule… or maybe the rule about vandalizing the note. That one makes very little sense." From the ceiling tiles, the detective moved his gaze to the younger male and then to the Shinigami. He was silent for a moment and Light didn't interrupt, knowing full well that the sugar-fiend of a detective would become extremely irritable when interrupted. "… All things considered… A good deal of these rules may very well be false."

Rem seemed to lose interest as she slowly ambled away from the detective and his lead suspect. Without uttering a thing and without even glancing at the small group of cops that had paused in their research to watch her, she passed through the far wall. The skeletal Shinigami did that often when she felt that questions were coming her way or if she'd already been interrogated too much for her own comfort.

Light returned his gaze to the hunched form sitting across from him.

"I don't know about you, but risking our lives to tear a page out of a notebook doesn't sound all that appealing to me." Light sighed closing his red-brown eyes tiredly. For emphasis he began to massage his temples with same sort of exhaustion. Ryuzaki's unbelievably wide eyes were upon him, he could feel it. He knew the detective was searching for any slip he could.

"Hm…" Was all L gave as a response. The former college student didn't open his eyes as he heard the raven haired detective reach across the small table and take a good quantity of sugar cubes rather skillfully between his thumb and index finger. He didn't need to look to know that L wouldn't drop a single one and that he would reach for another good quantity before he was satisfied enough to stir his tea. Several small sips could be heard before the drink was set back down and the killing note taken up again.

Light made a move to open his mouth and bring up rather casually the possibility of exploring the experimentation of these "false" rules, but he was forced to look rather dumbly and abruptly at the long line of computer screens like everyone else in the room as a gothic W appeared on every screen.

"_L._" There was no mechanical distortion to the old man's voice. Ryuzaki set the Death Note down on the table, closing it in the same peculiar sort of way that he had been holding it.

"Yes, Watari? What is it?" Light, for a reason that he wasn't aware, felt dread suddenly churn violently in the pit of his stomach. A pause from Watari's side of the communication, only long enough for Light's father and the rest of the task force to rise from their seats and make their way over.

"_Sakura TV will be broadcasting a message in five minutes._" L, who had been looking elsewhere, snapped his attention to the line of computers, his onyx eyes waiting for an explanation. Watari said nothing.

"Mogi-san, please get me a video feed from Sakura TV." Light watched out of his peripheral vision as the blocky man of few words quickly moved to the line of Macs and set to work. Mogi was admittedly efficient when it came to some things such as that, but after a moment of prolonged tapping that would obviously send their eccentric superior into a mood Aizawa stepped forward to help.

Ryuzaki stared at the two for a moment before glancing at Light with his reflective pitch colored eyes as he downed the rest of the crystallized tea in his cup. The younger man suddenly felt very sick watching it, though he had spent the last few months forced to sit through the detective's eccentricities.

"Got it!" Aizawa announced loudly. Both men stepped out of the way so that the gangly hunched form at the table could have a better view of the sleazy smiling face Demegawa. He hated that face, but it was a necessary evil that he had allowed to be associated with himself as Kira.

"_I am pleased to announce th__at Kira has once again chosen__ me for the honor of giving his message to the world!!_" Demegawa was louder and greedier than ever. The college dropout made a mental note to take care of him when his business with L was done and over. "_And now—I give you Kira's message!!_"

_This can't end well…_

The screen went dark, lines of static showing that the tape that was now playing had obviously been edited to the point of poor quality. L stepped out of his chair and made his way to the seat in front of the computer, forcing the handsome college dropout to follow irritably.

The screen was still black.

"Maybe the tape was damaged?" He heard Matsuda whisper to his father. Those words seemed to be the cue that the footage was seeking.

Suddenly a mechanical screech erupted from the computer, sending Light backwards in his swivel chair and the rest of the task force jumping in an extremely noticeable show of surprise. L, however, did not shift once. Following the screech, words began to scrape themselves into the black. Gnarled, written in English and snow white against the dark.

"'Mad Hatter'?" Light read confusedly, his Japanese accent only a little choppy against the English words. This wasn't a Kira… was it? The proxy, Misa… they had all used his name.

"_I AM—" _The shrill, scrambled voice was cut off as another wail erupted in the audio. The name against the black flickered and suddenly there was another name written more neatly, more feminine, against the black backdrop. "_White—"_

"White Rabbit." L mumbled, gripping his knees a bit more tightly as he completed the introduction for the more high-pitched synthesized voice. Light knew that the gears in the other man's head were turning a mile a minute, trying to make sense of it and already trying to figure out how he could apprehend whoever had sent a tape under the name of Kira. The image flickered again and a new name was written so messily that it was almost illegible. The font was also a horrendous shade of hot pink that stood out as strongly as the white. "Cheshire Cat."

A malevolent cackle rang out amongst the whirrs and wails of the distortion that had been added to the tape, a violent shiver running down the would-be God's spine. With so much editing, maybe this was a disc?

The audio did not even show that the third name had made a move to state itself. The name disappeared, leaving nothing but the grainy black that had started it. Everyone except for L let the tension leave their bodies.

"The tape is not over." L stated matter-of-factly, reaching to pull some sort of sugar-infused food item from the tray that had been set next to the computer a couple of hours before.

"Why do you say that?" Light inquired, fully believing the words of the detective. It would be rather stupid to end an obvious attempt at intimidation by just stating your name through an aggravating amount of audio distortion. Misa, though he really hated giving the woman praise, had done a considerable job in the scare tactics department when she had broadcast her first message through Sakura TV.

"There is more in the distortion or at least the rest of their introductions. Also, the graininess of this footage shows that the tape is still rolling." Ryuzaki tossed a piece of bright red candy into his mouth, not letting it touch his teeth. "I'd imagine that in the next few seconds or so, their message will continue."

And he was right. Of course.

He was really beginning to get pissed with audio distortion as well.

Another wail, this time louder. Everyone jumped again and covered their ears but Light was only able to attempt it. The handcuffs did not permit him to cover his left ear because L had been gripping his knees too tightly to give the young man any slack.

"_KIRA IS NOT—… MIGHTIER…" _The names flickered rapidly, the synthesized voices sounding different with each word. It was three people speaking and all he knew was that it would take a while for it to sink in that… this had ruined all of his plans.

More jerky pieces of English shrieked out of the speakers so indistinctly that it was difficult to put together any meaningful words at all. It lasted for five minutes or so before the tape eventually stopped running and Demegawa's face appeared again, a little less confident than it had been before.

"Yagami-san." L called after a minute of processing. Light's father stepped forward, showing that he was ready to carry out any orders that the gangly detective had for him. "You have had considerable luck retrieving tapes from Sakura TV in the past. Please take Aizawa-san and retrieve those for me as quickly as you can. They were meant for us specifically, not the public."

"Yes, Ryuzaki." The elder Yagami motioned for the younger cop to follow and they were gone, the automated doors closing rather loudly behind them.

"Matsuda-san, please go and retrieve Amane-san. I would much prefer if she was here instead of out there." Matsuda gave an affirmative and scurried out, knowing that if he waited longer L would have him running more errands than he could keep track of.

Light put his head down tiredly, staring at his shoes. For the first time in his life he knew that his eyes were blank and rather stupid looking. He could not think of anything.

"Something wrong Light-kun?" Ryuzaki asked lightly. There was smugness there, if Light wasn't imagining it.

"No, Ryuzaki." He answered after a moment of poor, confused thought. "Nothing's wrong."

He was fucked.

-/-/-/-

When the door flew open it became a good thing that the drywall behind it was already in a state of disrepair. After registering the noise through the towel wrapped around her head like a turban, Morrigan's narrow sepia eyes widened in surprise. Awkwardly, she spun around in her swivel chair to confirm who the intruder was and whether or not lobbing a heavy object would be necessary.

Elizabeth stared back, her entire frame shaking with pent up excitement and her russet-colored hair in a messier ponytail than it normally would have been in.

"Did you see the news?" The younger girl squealed in a cross between delight and nervousness. Morrigan wasn't sure if those two emotions should ever really be mixed together.

"Of course I saw the news." Morrigan hissed crossing her arms over her chest. "But answer me this, Lizzy. What are you, in all of your blonde glory, doing in my house!?"

Lizzy's sky blue eyes showed a little bit of relief at the fact that her friend had not mentioned her tardiness from the day before, but she was instantly very confused by the question.

"I'm not blonde though…"

"With your disposition, you might as well be." Morrigan huffed, ignoring the redhead and turning back to her computer where she had a prim-looking black notebook sitting wide open in front of her. Lizzy sighed loudly and meandered over to the unmade and rather unclean looking bed on the other side of the room. It had been very neat in here the last time she had visited. Why was it so filthy? "Where's that menace of yours?"

"Huh?" Lizzy's attention was drawn from the heap of filthy laundry in the corner that had just shifted a little to the back of Morrigan's head. Hm. The towel was covered in dye-stains and the color had been bleached out of it in some places. "Oh, Mokuhi! She's downstairs."

"Why—"

The sound of something heavy colliding with a wooden floor erupted from downstairs, causing both high school students to look at the open bedroom door. Morrigan narrowed her eyes in an attempt to deduce what would need replacing, but didn't need to think long before an almost deadpan voice called up the stairs.

"This bookshelf wasn't expensive was it? I don't think there's any fixing it…"

"MOKUHI! GET YOUR IMMORTAL ASS UP HERE!" Silence. The shadows out in the hallway shifted in a way that only the two girls would notice. Not bothering to hunch its own long-limbed form upon entrance, the creature's head simply passed through the top of the doorframe and stared at the young women.

Mokuhi was a more human looking shinigami than either of the girls had expected, an obvious show of youth in her field. Her amethyst colored hair was as fried looking as Morrigan's but noticeably longer and her wide eyes were the same tint of purple. Dangling just below where her hair's length ended were the brilliant star earrings that seemed contradictory of her place as a death god.

"I still can't believe that either of you are gods of death. I always thought they were scarier. I'm so fucking happy that my dad hasn't noticed all of his shit has started to go missing." Morrigan muttered darkly, taking in the almost black leather that covered the death god's body. Mokuhi was unfazed by this comment as she moved forward on spidery legs, the buckles adorning the plum-colored leather of her limbs clicking together faintly in a way that a Goth's accessories would.

"You don't have any doughnuts today…" The creature mumbled in a voice that a disappointed child might, placing its face close to Morrigan's. Lizzy looked faintly like she wanted to laugh.

"I didn't know you were coming, so deal with it." Lizzy sniggered, not catching the venom in the other girl's voice. Mokuhi sighed and pulled her wide-eyed face away, suddenly becoming more interested in the water-stains on the ceiling.

"Well, you know where mine is. Where's yours?" Lizzy asked after the giggling had subsided, though it was obvious that her blue eyes were still laughing. "Thomas says that we need to come up with plans, just in case L or Kira come after us."

"She's probably out terrorizing the neighborhood pets. She gets a kick out of it." The older girl removed the stained towel from her head and tossing it onto the pile of laundry that had been moving earlier. The smell of ammonia filled the room, the fabric of the towel no longer keeping it contained. "There are no _ifs_ about it. Those two'll come after us. What we need to worry about is which one'll be nicer. I'm voting the letter detective."

"Neither…" Lizzy mumbled, falling back onto the bed. It was messy, but at least it didn't smell dirty. "I bet they're both jerks. Maybe this was a bad idea."

"You can't tell me that you don't think this is fun…"

"I never said that." Elizabeth countered, watching as her friend walked into the bathroom and turned the sink on. Mokuhi stared at her, but she had grown used to it by now. "What?"

"Pogo is here." Lizzy's head whipped around to the window, the force of the movement loosening her ponytail. Eyes bluer than ice gazed at her from the window as yet another shinigami crawled through the window, this one not seeming to find it easier to ghost through.

If Mokuhi was extremely low on the scale of terrifying, then Pogo was something that small children would fight to cuddle with. She was spidery like the other, but her features were that of a rag-doll. Her short blue hair was straw-like and the clothing that seemed very much like skin was a patchwork mess of sapphire. Lizzy's smile returned even wider than before when she looked at the odd blush and stitch patterns on the shinigami's face.

"Hello Mrs. Stitches!!" Lizzy tittered, watching as the rag-doll examined the purple mass opposite her, obviously having forgotten the incident last week where the high school student had made an attempt to tie ribbons in her azure-colored straw tresses. Without taking her eyes off of Mokuhi, Pogo responded.

"That is not my name, but hello Lizzy."

The water in the bathroom stopped and Morrigan reentered her room, unfazed by the appearance of her own shinigami. Her hair was soaked, but all of the dye was gone.

"Okay, we need an escape plan."

-/-/-/-

"_I AM MAD HATTER. I AM WHITE RABBIT. I—AM CHESHIRE CAT!!!_" Three voices cried in unison as L stared at the computer screen. Light had grown tired of the show a long time ago, but for appearance's sake he was still watching it.

When Soichiro had returned with the footage it had not been a tape but a disc, like he had suspected. L had been right. There was more amongst the distortion. It had been coded efficiently for, he had surmised, an entertaining spectacle and for the privacy of the challenge against both media superpowers. Though both he and L were intelligent and, admittedly, formidable when working together, it had taken several hours to finally decode the rest of the message. The results were rather disappointing and reminiscent of religious gobbledygook that he often heard nowadays, whether it was favorable of himself or the false gods that most people still believed in.

The pause ended as suddenly as it always did and the cries continued.

"_KIRA IS NOT A GOD!! WE ARE MIGHTER!!_" L slurped up the last traces of his tea-sludge concoction and continued to stare at the video with unblinking eyes. "_WE SHALL DEFEAT THEM!!"_

Light massaged his temples, taking more care than needed to hide his growing exasperation. He was pissed, he was tired and he wanted whoever these psychotic people were dead. Very dead, however illogical that sounded.

He didn't have the time collectively in his life to describe how at a loss he was at this point. He had thought of everything when he had first constructed the plan that ended with his being chained to the socially inept detective, but even he, in all of the scenarios he had anticipated, not planned for the appearance of more shinigami or Kiras.

These last few hours had gone so wrong to the point that he had not even managed to rid himself of Rem. Where she was at that particular point in time was beyond him, but he seriously didn't care.

"_COWARDS!!!__ ALL!! KIRA SHALL DIE!!_" True distortion caused by the amount of editing done to the video made the audio to jitter, whatever being said in that particular instance being lost. "_WE ARE—"_

The audio had stopped suddenly. The video was over. Ryuzaki moved a spindly finger and the disc began to play once again.

"Two women. One man." L regurgitated what they already knew to himself. Light watched the Mad Hatter's name scratch itself onto the screen, deciding that he might as well join in with the spitting up of long discovered information.

"The audio of the two women speaking was edited so that their speech patterns match that of the man's. If played normally, it would sound as if they were having a heated conversation with each other. Obviously there are various pieces of the real conversation that aren't here." Light mumbled, taking a small sip of disgustingly cold coffee. It was black. L ate enough sugar for the both of them and he'd take heartburn over nausea any day. That an odd train of thought that he didn't want to follow.

"From the looks of it, this is the only tape we will receive from them." L stated, lifting a fork and using the prongs to cut a small chunk of cheese cake away from the larger slice.

"How so?" Light already knew. They both did, but at least they were doing something other than watching the names on the screen flicker in a seizure-inducing manner.

"They created a side of their own. They demonstrated an obvious hatred of Kira, but they did not make any move to state they were on L's side. This was an introduction and they feel no need to explain themselves further." L himself clarified as he chewed on his piece of cheese cake, swallowing audibly when it had been reduced to a soupy consistency in his mouth. "The voices of the women are a match to the voices during the introduction, so… Even if the audio was edited, they are still working with or for Mad Hatter."

"Because of the editing though, this must've changed hands a lot before it made it to Sakura TV." Light continued, sucking on his tongue in hopes of removing the taste of the horrible coffee from taste buds. "The English is fluent too. The accents aren't something that is distinguishable by country alone. American, do you think?"

"The likelihood is well over fifty percent." The detective took another bite of cheese cake, his wide eyes not leaving the screen as the chorus of voices began for what might've been the thirtieth time in the last hour.

Behind the two geniuses, the doors to the situation room opened. Light looked, but Ryuzaki didn't seem too compelled to break away from the monotony still airing on the computer screen. Aizawa scratched the back of his head, his eyes tired. He probably hadn't been up long according to his uncharacteristically disheveled appearence.

It was entertaining to think of how quickly the investigator must've dressed to get to the Kira HQ from his home.

"I thought that you might want to see this Ryuzaki." He handed the plainly dressed detective the print off that he had been holding. Without looking behind him, L took the paper between his thumb and index finger, holding the file rather delicately as always.

"What is it Ryuzaki? What does it say?" Light asked, the fatigue leaving his expression. If any more of these horrible feelings tore through his gut he was sure that he'd be upping stomach acids all over the expensive computers in front of him.

L's face didn't change as he reread the paper perhaps three times, taking in even the smallest of typos that might've been overlooked by a normal person.

"It would seem, Light-kun, that eight political leaders from Turkmenistan have just died of heart attacks."

-T-B-C-

A.N.2: Describing shinigami is one of the hardest things I've done in anything I've ever written. It's not easy at all and I'm hoping you guys don't think that my descriptions are dry. I always worry about that!! The last line of this chapter is actually inspired by a project that I did earlier in the year for school. It wasted three weeks of my teenaged life and kicked my love of English while it was down. Yea, that sucked.

I'm already working on the next chapter, so I'll see you all next post!


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